If one looks for a definition of the balm of Gilead aside from questionable unguents and speculative associations that have little or no biblical relevance as far as I can see, though they are comforting, the evidence is thin.We don't know who composed the gospel song, a black spiritual, but the root may be Genesis 31.

However, despite unmentioned anywhere else, all that I can find is Genesis 31. It is the story of Jacob and Laban. Jacob goes to the land of his mother's brother to find a wife. He falls for Rachel the younger but is given the elder Leah and for that must work for seven years for Laban. Then he is given Rachel for seven more years of work and a further six years piled on. Jacob has had enough and removes his wives and children and flocks and surreptitiously escapes to the hill country of Gilead across the Euphrates hotly pursued by Laban. Things look bad but Jacob has obeyed God in this move, and moreover God has also appeared to Laban and cautioned him about no nonsense. They meet in the hill country of Gilead and know that they are kinsmen. Together they build a heap of stones they name Gileed. They build together a pillar they name Mizpah which means watch point. These symbols are a witness. Anger is comforted and soothed Laban kisses his daughters and grandchildren and leaves to his side of the pillar and the Gileed. Jacob goes on to his life with his wives and children and flocks. This may be the balm of Gilead. This Easter Day It could be a balm for the troubles around the world.

At our seniors centre we have a weekly discussion group focused on Global Issues.We discuss or will discuss waste management (especially plastic in the world that never disappears) , global warming, the distribution of nuclear arms, artificial intelligence, the rise of hunger and the population, desertification and the water shortage. We begin with these discussions from two to four in the afternoon but soon lapse into interactions that drift into our past. With minor exception we are all in our near, or our early eighties so the past is important to us since it was then, when we really mattered. We have two formerly professors in our midst, two former doctors of medicine ,an ex federal civil servant , an ex naval officer and a former ballistic and finger print expert. We seem unable to avoid the period before we were old, when we really mattered. Such is struggling with transition. Two of us are legally blind. Two of us are legally lame, one on a walker, one on a scooter. Most of us are on anticoagulants because I see the hemorrhagic patches on the arms and dorsum of the hands. Tomorrow I'm going to a workshop on Transitions. Most will probably be younger. The thrust will be transitioning to newer pathways in life and how to cope with the newer pathways and encountering the fork in the road and decisions about which pathway to take. Our global issues group repeatedly try to take a new road in the forest but, as you can see, retreat to the old pathway we trod, recalling matters which mattered when we mattered. Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose.